Proto-Socialism: an Autopsy of the USSR.

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

You must be right, because I'm spoiled and live in a society that allows this type of blogging without being sent to a death camp. I'm certain that South Korea has the exceptionalism. They're shining, while North Koreans live in filth. If you lived in a proletariat state, you would not be playing Nationstates, you'll be looking for food and toilet paper everyday. That would be your daily existence.

If North Korea was even close to socialist, they would have actual fucking elections.

The lack of which should tell you something.

[United Marxist Nations]

You must be right, because I'm spoiled and live in a society that allows this type of blogging without being sent to a death camp. I'm certain that South Korea has the exceptionalism. They're shining, while North Koreans live in filth. If you lived in a proletariat state, you would not be playing Nationstates, you'll be looking for food and toilet paper everyday. That would be your daily existence.

Hence why I dislike North Korea, it is an ethnic-supremacist state, and it has no interest in socialism.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

You must be right, because I'm spoiled and live in a society that allows this type of blogging without being sent to a death camp. I'm certain that South Korea has the exceptionalism. They're shining, while North Koreans live in filth. If you lived in a proletariat state, you would not be playing Nationstates, you'll be looking for food and toilet paper everyday. That would be your daily existence.

If North Korea was even close to socialist, they would have actual fucking elections.

The lack of which should tell you something.

He's probably talking about Statism

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

Such wonderful prose.

wankers of the world unite

Are you that eager to call your brethren?

[United Marxist Nations]

No, they aren't. You're clearly not familiar with NK's state ideologies of Juche and Songun, which call for Korean exceptionalism and supremacy. And Cuba isn't even that bad.

So yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about.

lol wth Cuba is shit.

Has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the US. Despite the fact that the largest economy in the world, which is the extremely close to them, refuses to allow trade with them, and having relatively few natural resources. It also eliminated illiteracy, which, in 1959 was around 50%. Cuba has also developed a lung-cancer vaccine.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

lol wth Cuba is shit.

Has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the US. Despite the fact that the largest economy in the world, which is the extremely close to them, refuses to allow trade with them, and having relatively few natural resources. It also eliminated illiteracy, which, in 1959 was around 50%. Cuba has also developed a lung-cancer vaccine.

..and their houses are literally crumbling down on top of them because building materials are rationalized. PCs were first made available in 2008 if I recall correctly, and, at least then, were too expensive for most to afford. The country is a living ruin for all practical purposes. USSR dun goofed.

[United Marxist Nations]

I'd also like to point out to the two posters I just replied to that, in at least these three former SSR countries, the populace is of the impression that things under capitalism are worse than under Proto-Socialism:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/con ... iet-union/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/forme ... eakup.aspx

[United Marxist Nations]

Has higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the US. Despite the fact that the largest economy in the world, which is the extremely close to them, refuses to allow trade with them, and having relatively few natural resources. It also eliminated illiteracy, which, in 1959 was around 50%. Cuba has also developed a lung-cancer vaccine.

..and their houses are literally crumbling down on top of them because building materials are rationalized. PCs were first made available in 2008 if I recall correctly, and, at least then, were too expensive for most to afford. The country is a living ruin for all practical purposes. USSR dun goofed.

Source on the houses crumbling down on top of them, because I doubt it's a common occurrence. And yeah, Cuba's economy is terrible; it wasn't like it was awesome before. The USSR, on the other hand, was the second largest economy on Earth (when you adjust for inflation, its GDP was bigger than all the former Republics combined), it went from having to import nails to sputnik in 30 years.

[Fezkovia]

I think what happened is what happens with most communist states. You're supposed to have a revolution, cement power, have an election and make everything better. What the USSR and subsequent communist nations did was have a revolution cement power and then try to make everything better without elections. They were so misguided by the idea that they could effectively run the place according to the people's will that they made decisions resulting in losing popularity with the people. But they were so desperate to make things better, they clung to power for as long as possible and just made things worse.

tl;dr: Have elections. Put the People in People's Republic.

[Greater Weselton]

The USSR was the most socialist state of all-time.

[United Marxist Nations]

The USSR was the most socialist state of all-time.

The point of my post was to point out that it failed to achieve socialism. The idea of this thread is to discuss the USSR in terms of an experiment, and to examine the results of the experiment, determine what went wrong, and what can be done better next time. Hence the name "an Autopsy".

I can see that this won't happen, since everyone wants to focus on trashing the USSR, so the mods may as well lock this thread.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

I'd also like to point out to the two posters I just replied to that, in at least these three former SSR countries, the populace is of the impression that things under capitalism are worse than under Proto-Socialism:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/con ... iet-union/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/forme ... eakup.aspx

No shit. What do you expect when you suddenly go from complete statism to pseudo-democratic pseudo-liberal pseudo-capitalism where the "old guard" and their old/new friends are de facto still in power, with crippling nepotism and corruption, with, in practice, shit nationalization, where, because of historical reasons, a nanny state mentality persists and it almost never strikes the common man that instead of worrying WHICH corrupt bureaucrat will be (mis-)handling their hard-earned cash next they perhaps shouldn't be giving it away in the first place?

[Greater Weselton]

The USSR was the most socialist state of all-time.

The point of my post was to point out that it failed to achieve socialism. The idea of this thread is to discuss the USSR in terms of an experiment, and to examine the results of the experiment, determine what went wrong, and what can be done better next time. Hence the name "an Autopsy".

I can see that this won't happen, since everyone wants to focus on trashing the USSR, so the mods may as well lock this thread.

The experiment failed. Socialism sucks.

[United Marxist Nations]

I think what happened is what happens with most communist states. You're supposed to have a revolution, cement power, have an election and make everything better. What the USSR and subsequent communist nations did was have a revolution cement power and then try to make everything better without elections. They were so misguided by the idea that they could effectively run the place according to the people's will that they made decisions resulting in losing popularity with the people. But they were so desperate to make things better, they clung to power for as long as possible and just made things worse.

tl;dr: Have elections. Put the People in People's Republic.

I think that is a decent analysis, and is what should be done next time. The USSR couldn't do that (at least in the early days) because they were dealing with a populace that mostly couldn't read; however, you're right when talking about the later USSR, because they very much had the chance to introduce a Soviet Republic (or at least make the already legal one the de facto power).

At least someone wants to talk about it with me. (;_;)

[United Marxist Nations]

I'd also like to point out to the two posters I just replied to that, in at least these three former SSR countries, the populace is of the impression that things under capitalism are worse than under Proto-Socialism:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/05/con ... iet-union/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/forme ... eakup.aspx

No shit. What do you expect when you suddenly go from complete statism to pseudo-democratic pseudo-liberal pseudo-capitalism where the "old guard" and their old/new friends are de facto still in power, with crippling nepotism and corruption, with, in practice, shit nationalization, where, because of historical reasons, a nanny state mentality persists and it almost never strikes the common man that instead of worrying WHICH corrupt bureaucrat will be (mis-)handling their hard-earned cash next they perhaps shouldn't be giving it away in the first place?

So, basically capitalism.

EDIT: And the "Old Guard" wasn't still in power, they were forced out by Yeltsin.

[United Marxist Nations]

The point of my post was to point out that it failed to achieve socialism. The idea of this thread is to discuss the USSR in terms of an experiment, and to examine the results of the experiment, determine what went wrong, and what can be done better next time. Hence the name "an Autopsy".

I can see that this won't happen, since everyone wants to focus on trashing the USSR, so the mods may as well lock this thread.

The experiment failed. Socialism sucks.

No, it didn't. The point of an experiment is to show what went wrong, thus, the USSR is instrumental to future socialism to do better than it did.

[Greater Weselton]

The experiment failed. Socialism sucks.

No, it didn't. The point of an experiment is to show what went wrong, thus, the USSR is instrumental to future socialism to do better than it did.

I hope there is no future socialism.

[United Marxist Nations]

No, it didn't. The point of an experiment is to show what went wrong, thus, the USSR is instrumental to future socialism to do better than it did.

I hope there is no future socialism.

Why? What is your problem with socialism? Instead of just saying "socialism sucks" (of course, you like Tsar Nicky II, so your definition of "sucking" is dubious at best), go into depth, examine thing scientifically.

[Greater Weselton]

I hope there is no future socialism.

Why? What is your problem with socialism? Instead of just saying "socialism sucks" (of course, you like Tsar Nicky II, so your definition of "sucking" is dubious at best), go into depth, examine thing scientifically.

Socialists don't allow for freedom of property. They also reject God.

[United Marxist Nations]

Why? What is your problem with socialism? Instead of just saying "socialism sucks" (of course, you like Tsar Nicky II, so your definition of "sucking" is dubious at best), go into depth, examine thing scientifically.

Socialists don't allow for freedom of property. They also reject God.

1) And we Marxists would say that capitalists don't allow the proletariat the freedom of its property.
2) Irrelevant.

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

Why? What is your problem with socialism? Instead of just saying "socialism sucks" (of course, you like Tsar Nicky II, so your definition of "sucking" is dubious at best), go into depth, examine thing scientifically.

Socialists don't allow for freedom of property. They also reject God.

Personal property is different, and unfucked with.

[United Marxist Nations]

Socialists don't allow for freedom of property. They also reject God.

Personal property is different, and unfucked with.

That too, though I assumed he was talking about productive property.

[Bojikami]

I found this to be a pretty good analysis of the USSR.

[The Sotoan Union]

Those people will have a leader. The leader is the one who takes charge when the revolution is over. Are the revolutionaries supposed to get rid of him too? Someone else will just take charge.

If that were the case, then all states would have that perpetual problem. A Soviet Republic would pertain to a structure that would make it difficult for any one person to have so much power.

But then it runs into the problems all revolutionary democracies face. The instability and chaos of a revolution make it difficult to have a functioning republic with checks and balances. Either the peace is kept by a dictatorial state or the whole thing collapses.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

No shit. What do you expect when you suddenly go from complete statism to pseudo-democratic pseudo-liberal pseudo-capitalism where the "old guard" and their old/new friends are de facto still in power, with crippling nepotism and corruption, with, in practice, shit nationalization, where, because of historical reasons, a nanny state mentality persists and it almost never strikes the common man that instead of worrying WHICH corrupt bureaucrat will be (mis-)handling their hard-earned cash next they perhaps shouldn't be giving it away in the first place?

So, basically capitalism.

EDIT: And the "Old Guard" wasn't still in power, they were forced out by Yeltsin.

Uhh, no. The validity of elections in post-Soviet states have been challenged and accusations of fraud brought and in some cases proven how many times now? They are also far less liberal than "already Western" states. Russia has been getting especially more authoritarian recently, as if it wasn't already. As far as capitalism is concerned, "Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit." So yes, I guess that you are correct, in this sense, "for profit by high-ranking current and former state employees." The problem is that the industry is actually shit and the "profit" is made through embezzlement.

EDIT: Also, one needs look no further than Putin to see how "fresh" the political scene is in ex-Soviet countries.